Next stop, the master bedroom, which showed clear signs of habitation, including the unmade bed. Melanie and Sawyer must be sleeping here. Next door, the guest room—Mom’s girlhood bedroom—was unchanged, twin beds still covered in rose-colored quilts.
What was the deal with Alana’s room? Was this Melanie’s way of sticking it to her sister? Why not hang a big Alana No Longer Lives Here sign on the front door? At least Mel could have asked if trashing Alana’s past was okay.
She slumped against the wall in the hallway, head throbbing, on the verge of tears. Maybe she shouldn’t have come.
Except she had to to make sure the house would be taken good care of, and she had to make sure Sawyer wouldn’t take Melanie on another one-way ride to heartbreak and/or self-destruction.
She took her makeup kit into the hall bathroom—cleaned recently, thank goodness—brushed her teeth and slugged down a sleeping pill. Tonight at least she’d sleep. Tomorrow she’d deal with all this, when she was refreshed.
But first, something for this headache. She scoured the medicine cabinet and pulled down a bottle of generic ibuprofen, popped the top and shook one into her hand, staring in the mirror while she filled a paper cup from the clouded plastic dispenser with water. She looked tired, dark circles under her eyes and faint puffiness; the stress of the past few days and this damn headache had turned her pale. Ugh.
A split second before she tossed back the pill, she noticed it wasn’t ibuprofen’s usual brown-orange color. Funny. Most of the generics looked similar to the brand names. She studied the bottle. It said ibuprofen… Should she panic?
She was too tired.
Face washed, changed into the cream-colored cotton camisole and girl boxers she wore in the summer, she settled into bed with A Year of Wonders, a favorite book from her untouched bookshelf—at least Melanie left that alone.
Within twenty minutes, sleep started to overpower her to the point where her eyes crossed as she struggled vainly to keep them open. Whoa. Those new pills Dr. Bagin gave her were serious.
The book slid off the bed; she couldn’t even be bothered to stop its fall. She reached for the light and nearly knocked the lamp off the table.
Sleep. She had to.
Now. No fighting it.
She pulled the covers over her with arms that felt like forty-pound weights.
Very…potent…pills…
2
SAWYER KERN opened his eyes. Had he heard something or dreamed it? He frowned. The ceiling looked wrong. Where was his fan? Who had taken his ceiling fan?
He lifted his head, grimacing at the effort. What the—
The room wasn’t remotely familiar. Where the hell was he? How did he get here? He couldn’t remember a damn thing.
His head dropped back; he tried to focus his fuzzy brain, which didn’t want to focus at all. Was he still dreaming? He didn’t think so.
Party…okay, yes, he’d been at a party. His brother Finn threw a coed bachelor party for a friend at a local bar. Right. That was it. He’d had a few drinks. More than usual. Some kind of vodka he thought, mixed with other stuff. His head still didn’t feel right. Too big. Or maybe too small.
Wait. He hadn’t had that many, had he? He’d never been blacked-out drunk in his life. Never. Not even close. Spins a few times, that was it.
But somehow he’d ended up here. Wherever here was. He squinted, frowning, trying to concentrate.
Wait. Something else was coming to him. At the party. Last thing he remembered he’d been talking to a beautiful brunette. A very hot beautiful brunette. An artist. No, she was in insurance. No. Both? Neither? He remembered thinking she was being aw-fully friendly and he remembered not minding at all. It had been a while since a woman came on to him.
Then…yes, someone had offered him another drink, a different one, “specialty of the house.” Whatsisname, Finn’s friend from college, from the group which never managed to graduate mentally from fraternity days. The one Sawyer never liked or trusted.
Still, he’d accepted. One more drink wouldn’t hurt, that’s what he’d thought, but then he’d stop. How many total? Three? Four? Not more.
The brunette had declined, rolling her eyes. Sawyer had decided from something the fraternity jerk said that he and the brunette had a past, that her interest had ended but his hadn’t. What was her name? Deb? Debbie? Deborah? Something.
He’d had the drink, was chatting with Deb…whatever. And then…
Nothing. Nothing after that.
What the hell had he…Phil, that was his name. Phil. What had been in that drink? More than alcohol. Something that completely—
He heard the sound again. The one that woke him. A low sigh/moan, the kind a woman makes when she’s aroused.
Uh-oh. He turned his head and saw the outline of a shoulder against the barest glow from a streetlight creeping in around the shades. Speaking of the hot brunette. He must have gone home with her.
No. He looked around the room again; this time the details clicked. He’d brought her to Melanie’s. He remembered that much now. He’d known better than to drive, so he’d walked here. Melanie had already given him a key to the house.
Okay, regroup.
So…this incredible artist-or-insurance-agent brunette had agreed to come home with him even wasted to the point where he could barely function?
Wow. On a very shallow “guy” level, he was quite impressed with himself. She hadn’t had the “specialty of the house” spiked with God knew what, so her decision must have been based on actual rational thought. Or as rational as thought could get when hormones took control.
So, hey. He’d left thirty behind a couple of years ago, but he wasn’t dead yet.
His one-night stand stirred and rolled to her back, head turned away from him. Funny, he remembered her hair shorter. But then who knew what had happened to his mind last night?
And while he was at it, who knew what had happened to his body? Whatever it was—and from the hungry way she’d looked at him it promised to be good—he couldn’t believe he’d missed it.
He turned on his side, gazing down at what he could see of her. She smelled good. Womanly and fresh. He hadn’t noticed last night in the crowded room. Maybe she wouldn’t mind a replay of whatever they did when they got here. He was still under the influence of something, but this time he was pretty sure he’d remember the whole thing.
“Hey. Deb…bie…orah.”
“Mmph.” She moved again, turned toward him. The sheet slid off her shoulder to reveal the top few inches of a low-cut and very sexy clingy camisole which she filled out much better than he’d have thought from the slender frame he remembered. He hadn’t even undressed her? Had they been in that much of a frantic
